


at the crossing of two heart roads, there is no temple for apollo

by spookyfoot



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Grief/Mourning, M/M, angst with a happy ending i promise, liberties taken with both sources, non linear, orpheus and eurydice inspired
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-12 00:34:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16862905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookyfoot/pseuds/spookyfoot
Summary: Death takes Shiro from Keith. Keith takes him back.The gates of hell are less impressive than Keith thought they’d be. It’s almost like he’s not there at all—he’s three years away, helpless, watching as Shiro’s face twists in pain, blood matting his clothes to his side.It’s a clean wound. Keith’s seen people survive worse.But Shiro doesn’t.





	at the crossing of two heart roads, there is no temple for apollo

**Author's Note:**

> brought to you by a very bad day, and an uninterrupted writing binge. unbeta'd. the rating is for some descriptions of violence. title from ranier maria rilke's sonnets to orpheus.

Keith searches for three years before he finds an obscure, half disintegrated text with the answers he’s looking for.  

Now, the jaws to the underworld hang open in front of him, poised to devour.

Keith runs a hand over one of the stalactites. It’s smooth, but like the clean edge of a blade instead of glass, and his fingers come away red. A drop of blood beads at the tip of his thumb, stark crimson, and it wells past the point of clinging to skin. It falls and splatters against the rocks. They shift and a path clears, winding through the petrified forest of stone and into darkness.

 _Beware the water,_ the scroll said _._

Keith pulls a necklace out of his pocket and cups it in his palm. It flashes gold in the dying light of the sun. He slips it on and tucks it beneath his shirt before tightening his cloak around his shoulders. Then he steps into the cave, knife and water cask swinging against his hip like a heartbeat.

_______________________

_war tears across the land, a cruel fire that burns away at the life they’d built together, in their small their small, weather-worn house on the outskirts of the city. close enough to get the supplies they needed without trouble, far enough that no one would trouble them._

_trouble came for them, anyways, and burned through them, too._

_when keith returns to their house, three years later, the only thing left is ash._

_______________________

The murmur of rushing water greets him. His eyes adjust to the gloom, revealing a large lake that tapers off into a river, with dark water rippling across the surface, pushed by an invisible wind.

At the far edge of the cavern, a shadow dances over the wall but a moment later it’s gone.

_Was that—_

No. What was it he was supposed to do?

_Keep moving._

As he pushes forward, the sound of the current builds and that’s when he realizes:

It’s not the water itself that he’s hearing; it’s whispers.

_______________________

_fate finds them serving together in the same regiment. the roads are rough so their company keeps to the fields, grasping at any advantage. they grow used to the feeling of long grass bending beneath their backs when they make camp for the night._

_the numbers around them shift, but despite the odds, their core group survives the worst battles, the ones that see the desert plains robed in red by something other than the setting sun._

_there are quiet nights curled around one another beside a campfire. there are nights where keith can almost forget why they’re here. why they’re finding comfort in each other atop a thin camp cot that does little to conceal the rocks beneath it, instead of the bed they’d built together at home._

_the war marches on, it’s true. but for a little while, all is quiet._

_it’s the quiet that ends up as their undoing._

_______________________

There are bodies in the water.

Hundreds. Thousands. Millions—or more.

Keith kneels down by the waters edge.  A face stares up at him from under the current, cast in sickly blue light. He swallows, throat dry. _I could lean in and take a drink,_ he thinks, bending forward. He could—

_Don’t get too close to the river._

Who told him that?

He pulls back just as a bony hand charges out of the river, just inches shy of his throat.

 _Remember why you came_.

He stumbles away from the bank, something swinging against his hip.

_What is that?_

He reaches down and wraps a hand around smooth, well worn leather. A water cask. He turns it over in his palm and traces the initials carved just below the cap.

_T.S._

He twists it open and drinks deep, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand when he’s done. The river stretches out into the darkness but, his mind is a little clearer and _there_ , a few hundred feet away—a boat.

_________________________

_its a night like any of the last year they’ve spent traveling. tents in the same spots, all the familiar songs, the rustle of brush caught in the wind._

_but it’s not brush._

_it’s an ambush._

_______________________

The current is strong, but the hands that grasp at his oar are stronger. They push and pull him off course but he holds fast, making his way down stream to a carved stone arch. Above the highest point is an oval with three circles carved in the center, the one in the middle resting just above the others.

Keith doesn’t have time to examine it too closely before the current pushes him through—and down onto a steep drop off. He’s thrown from the boat and into the water. The hands are everywhere, clawing at his skin, his soaking wet cloak.

His necklace feels heavy, but warm, despite the freezing water, and he holds onto that weight, that warmth. He makes a break for the shore.

Somehow, he succeeds. He crawls out of the river on his hands and knees, coughing up freezing water, body racked with shivers.

He’s not sure how long he stays like that but when he looks up, he notices a distant light. Another doorway.

_Three doors and then—_

(Who said that to him? Why can’t he remember?)

He rises to his feet and makes his way over, clothes dripping wet and sticking to his skin.

(There’s someone he’s forgetting. Someone important. Someone he has to find.)

He steps through the doorway.

_______________________

_they’ve gotten used to wearing armour around camp, but as time wears on, the routine wears thin and with it, caution. they grow comfortable. careless._

_______________________

The room is a perfect circle but there's no time to plan; as soon a he crosses the threshold the whole thing starts spinning. It’s moving so fast that the door at the other end is little more than a blur. But it’s a target he can aim for. So he does.

The ground shifts beneath his feet with every step he takes, but he keeps going. It's not until he’s halfway across that a woman’s voice echoes through the chamber.

“You are not meant to go through that door,” she says. He looks around, but no one is there.

It’s a split second hesitation, but it’s enough to ensure he ends up exactly where he started.

He tries again. And again. And again.

“You are not meant to go through that door,” she says each time, but he keeps trying, even though this is the very definition of insanity.

But he has to. Someone is waiting for him.

_______________________

_even if you do not drink from its waters, the river lethe will make you forget, the scroll said, you must find ways to make yourself remember._

_________________________

He’s lost count of his attempts by the time he stumbles over the dip in the floor, and that moment is enough to send him right back to the other side of the room once more. But his thought catches on it just like his feet did and, this time, he knows what to do. He slides his knife from its sheath and throws it directly into the center, jamming the mechanism. Then, before he can question it, he races over, wrenches the knife free, jumping through while the way is still clear.

And into free fall.

_______________________

_it’s an unfair fight, but they’re well trained, so used to fighting alongside one another that they always know where each other is._

_it's an advantage until it isn't._

_it's how keith knows the exact moment the enemy sword tears through the tendon connecting connecting bicep to shoulder._

_______________________

There is no next room. Instead, Keith falls into a field of tall grey grass. It’s a shade off the color it should be, like whoever made it had only seen what grass looked like from an image bleached by years and distance. He stares at the sky, a too pale blue.

Where is he?

“Are you lost?” someone asks.

Keith turns his head, heart racing at the sight of a familiar, beloved face. Whatever memories the river stole from him rush back, carried by a current of their own.

“Shiro?”

_______________________

_“always knew this arm was going to be the death of me,” shiro says with a weak smile. he’s lying on the cot in their tent with keith by his side. he coughs, and a little blood trickles out of the corner of his mouth but he squeezes keith’s hand, laced with his own._

_“stop talking like that, you’re going to make it,” keith says, desperate and unsure which of them he’s trying to convince. “you promised.”_

for the rest of our lives _, they’d said_.

_keith never meant for shiro’s part of that promise to end with him bleeding out on a battlefield. he'll make sure it isn't, whatever it takes._

_______________________

“Keith?” What are you doing, you shouldn’t be here!”

“I’m here for you—you’re coming back with me.”

_______________________

_“hey keith.”_

_“yeah?”_

_“i love you.”_

_“don’t say it like that,” keith says, brushing shiro’s hair back from his forehead._

don't say it like it's the last time.

_“aren’t you going to tell me you love me too?” shiro asks._

_“you know i do.”_

_“please.”_

_“i love you,” keith says, even as shiro’s grip grows weaker._

_“you made me so happy.”_

_“shiro, don’t—”_

_“i want you to be happy, too,” shiro says. then his hand goes limp and keith's desperately searching for a pulse._

_“i don’t know how to be happy without you,” keith says, pleading, but shiro doesn’t answer. “the rest of our lives, that’s what we said, and i’m not giving up, okay? i’ll find you. i promise.”_

_______________________

“You don’t belong here,” Honerva says, perched on her throne. Keith thought it was made out of vines at first, but as they drew closer, he realized it was bone. Still he stands his ground. He came here for a reason. 

“He doesn’t either,” Keith says, “he promised me. A binding contract.”

Honerva arches a brow, “do you have proof?”

Keith pulls his necklace from underneath his shirt, two rings dangling on the chain, and flashes the message inscribed on the inside of each.

_______________________

_the war ends, but the one inside of keith continues with each step he takes, keenly aware of the empty space at his side._

_but he’s not giving up. he keeps searching, hunting for any scrap of knowledge that will lead him to the underworld. to shiro._

_each time he meets another dead end, he  slides off his ring and smoothes his fingertips over the words written inside:_

i promise you this life, and the next one, too.  

_______________________

The way back is a long, spindly road, precariously carved into the mountainside. Shiro keeps looking back behind them to see if they’re being followed, but Honerva appears to be honoring her word.

 _I will not keep what isn’t mine to hold,_ she’d said, _if you can make it up that path you may leave, provided you leave only with what belongs to you_. Shiro still looked wary, but he’d let Keith take his hand and lead him away from the dim half light of the underworld and towards a second chance.

“You have both arms,” Keith says, because the hand he’s holding—it’s Shiro’s right.

“Yeah,” Shiro says, giving Keith’s hand a squeeze before letting go. “I think it’s something to do with this place.”

“Maybe it restores you to how you were before you—” Keith can’t finish the sentence.

“Died. I died, Keith,” Shiro says. It's soft but his tone does nothing to cushion the blow, a wound three years fresh and still unable to scab over.

Keith turns away to look at the path ahead because he can't meet Shiro's eyes. In the distance, there’s a pinprick of light; the mouth of the cave, their way out.

“Almost there,” Keith says.

“Interesting definition of ‘almost,'” Shiro says.

Keith stops short just so he can turn and knock his shoulder against Shiro’s, but it doesn’t give under pressure the way it should. He frowns, but Shiro’s smiling at him, laugh lines creasing the corners of his eyes, and he tells himself they can figure it out later.

_______________________

_keith caries shiro’s shade with him everywhere. across oceans and continents, in seedy one bar towns, and big bustling cities. he searches and searches for answers. he searches for hope._

_then, in the crumbled ruins of a library long forgotten by the civilization that built it, he finds what he’s looking for._

_______________________

Keith’s a few steps into the stone forest before he notices the absence of Shiro’s footsteps. He turns. Shiro’s frozen at the place where stone turns to sand.

“Shiro? What’s wrong?”

“I can’t move,” he says. “Maybe this was all a trick. Maybe I’m not meant to leave here.”

“ _No_.” Keith says, striding back to meet him. They've made it this far, Keith's not leaving here without him. They're leaving together or neither of them is. “There must be something else.”

“It’s death, Keith, there _is_ nothing else. This is it.” Shiro runs a hand through his hair. “I wish there was. I miss you so much but—I don’t think there’s anything else we can do,”  he sighs and looks down at his right hand, flexing the fingers.

_Oh._

“Shiro, do you trust me?”

“Of course I do.”

“Give me your hand,” Keith says, holding out his own.

Shiro lays his across Keith’s palm. It’s too light.  

 _I will not keep what isn’t mine to hold, if you can make it up that path you may leave, provided you leave only with what belongs to you_.

_Only what belongs to you._

Keith slides his knife from his belt. “I’m sorry,” he says, voice breaking. Then he cleaves the tendon connecting Shiro’s arm to his shoulder clean in two.

_______________________

_the gates of hell are less impressive than keith thought they’d be. it’s almost like he’s not there at all—he’s three years away, helpless, watching as shiro’s face twists in pain, blood matting his clothes to his side._

_it’s a clean wound. keith’s seen people survive worse._

_but shiro doesn’t._

_______________________

There’s a scream but no blood and the arm comes off clean. It's weightless in Keith's hands. It lingers for just a moment before dissolving to nothing.

"Come back with me," Keith says. 

And Shiro takes a step over the threshold, left hand intertwined with Keith’s as they walk out of the petrified forest and into the sun.

**Author's Note:**

> [ tumblr](http://spookyfoot.tumblr.com) // [ twitter](http://twitter.com/spooky_foot).


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